Here is where we gorge ourselves on the creamy clostrum of Information. Here is where we nuzzle at the red-raw teat of the Up-To-Date Dataweb. Bring me the light of your Weird Wisdom and your New News.

The treament involves injecting a capsule into the abdomen containing brown fat (the good type of fat cells that burn glucose to raise the body's temperature) and white fat cells engineered to lack an enzyme required for the development of visceral fat. (Fat aound the abdomen is really, really bad for you and the amount of visceral fat a person has is a much better indicator of health levels that total amounts of fat.)

The brown fat and the modfiied white fat cells apparently convert the visceral fat cells into other less harmful forms of fat. The result is an average reduction of 20% in visceral fat and an initial drop of about 10% in weight although some of that coems back later.

Tests on large animals start soon and assuming they go well this will probably be being tested in humans within a few years. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339780#Comment_339780
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339780#Comment_339780Fri, 07 Sep 2012 06:09:33 -0500magnusisasillyname
RIP Terry Nutkins, dead at 66 from Leukemia.

I don't know much about natural history, but what I do know, I know because of Terry and his ilk. He was a good guy. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339809#Comment_339809
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339809#Comment_339809Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:06:12 -0500Steve ToaseNEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339810#Comment_339810
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339810#Comment_339810Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:15:05 -0500FlabyoNo idea what they thought they could learn by taking footage of a building, but that's the rolling news for you. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339833#Comment_339833
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339833#Comment_339833Sat, 08 Sep 2012 13:18:26 -0500FlabyoSolution? Suspend teaching at local universities, and bus the students in for a mandatory internship. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339858#Comment_339858
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=339858#Comment_339858Sun, 09 Sep 2012 04:49:09 -0500Kosmopolit

The officers found Powell's body on the couch of the Requa home. His chest was cut open, and his heart, tongue and the skin of his face were gone, court records said. His heart was found charred in a wood-burning stove.

An autopsy determined the organs had been removed while Powell was still alive, the documents said.

Speaking at a regional meeting of members from the ruling United Russia party on Wednesday, Mr. Medvedev said he thought the women’s two-year sentences were too harsh and he doesn’t see any point in keeping them behind bars.

“The term is very strong. I would even say a terrible burden,” he said in televised comments. “I don’t want to replace the judge … but the time they have already served is, in essence, more than enough to make them think about what happened, whether it was from their own stupidity or for other reasons.”

“Prolonging their time in prison in connection to this case seems unproductive,” he said, noting that a suspended sentence that included the more than six months they’ve already served would have been adequate.

Still, Mr. Medvedev said he was “sickened” by what the women had done and the “hysteria” that has surrounded their case.

Forget the "Obama is a socialist" nonsense. The real problem with Obama is that for whatever reason - and the Republican-controlled congress is a pretty good starting point - the US recovery has primarily benefited the rich, not the middle class or the poor. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340127#Comment_340127
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340127#Comment_340127Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:55:54 -0500Wood
Bavarian monk found naked in the woods, tripping on belladona berries

Wow. I didn't know catholic monks did the whole shamanistic retreat-into-the-woods-and-consume-hallucinogenic-drugs thing. Do you think he met his spirit animal ?

Also, he's fucking lucky to be alive. Belladona can totally kill you, and it's not a pleasant death : tachycardia, mydriasis, hyperthermia, sensation of intense thirst, and ultimately death by paralysis of the respiratory muscles. I remember reading it doesn't take more than dozen of these little berries to kill an adult. So yeah, don't try this at home. Or in the woods, whatever. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340134#Comment_340134
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340134#Comment_340134Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:33:43 -0500Cat Vincent
Woman's Realm magazine (a gardening/knitting pattern, general genteel 'wifely' crafts magazine) published an account of an accidental belladonna dose due to a few berries falling into a batch of blackberry jam. Said jam maker wondered why things seemed so odd that breakfast as she has her toast... and was kind enough to note the ratio of belladonna-to-blackberry which provided the woman's safe but educational trip. (It was 4/6 berries of atropa belladonna to a pound of jam. Y'know, just in case...) ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340171#Comment_340171
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340171#Comment_340171Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:17:13 -0500Kay Orchison
Fake gay zombie necrophilia worse than real donkey sex: Australian censor ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340179#Comment_340179
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340179#Comment_340179Fri, 14 Sep 2012 03:54:39 -0500Purple Wyrm
female donkeys, it's all above board. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340190#Comment_340190
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340190#Comment_340190Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:25:41 -0500Kosmopolit
Neural prostheses

Or to put it another way: holy fucking hell!

Researchers have taken a key step towards recovering specific brain functions in sufferers of brain disease and injuries by successfully restoring the decision-making processes in monkeys.

In the next phase of the study, a drug known to disrupt cognitive activity, cocaine, was administered to the animals to simulate brain injury. When the animals repeated the image-selection task, their decision-making ability decreased 13 percent from normal. However, during these "drug sessions," the MIMO prosthesis detected when the animals were likely to choose the wrong image and played back the previously recorded "correct" neural patterns for the task. According to the study findings, the MIMO device was exceedingly effective in restoring the cocaine-impaired decision-making ability to an improved level of 10 percent above normal, even when the drug was still present and active. "The basis for why the MIMO prosthesis was effective in improving performance was because we specifically programmed the model to recognize neural patterns that occurred when the animals correctly performed the behavioral task in real time, which is a unique feature of this particular device," said Robert E. Hampson, Ph.D., associate professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest Baptist, and lead author of the study.

Justin Street, a father of two, had gone to Kasia Rivera, 35, on May 5 seeking a penile enlargement procedure, which prosecutors say Rivera advertised for in fliers posted at local businesses. Rivera, who performed the procedures in her apartment, allegedly with no medical license or training, administered a silicone shot to Street’s penis, according to prosecutors.Street died the next day of a silicone embolism.

(I know that this is a proof of concept medical test and by its nature crude. Refinements to come, and ultimately likely many beneficial uses. But if you read what they've done with those monkeys, well... That's what they've done.) ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340258#Comment_340258
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340258#Comment_340258Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:12:56 -0500KosmopolitActually, assuming this works and is applicable in humans, the likely first application is probably in the treatment of senile dementia and assisting in the recovery of stroke victims and other people who've suffered brain damage. The biggest barrier is likely to be that the neural signalling varies signficantly from person to person so you have to actually record an individual performing the correct thought process in order to replicate it.

There are probably going to be a bunch of ethical arguments over applying an expensive invasive potetnially dangerous treatment to peopel who will likely only have a few more years life in any case.

Then too, if you can induce, you can probably inhibit - which opens up the possibility of new treatments for a whole range of mental illnesses.

I repeat: holy fuckign hell.

On the one hand, this research suggests it may be possible to artificially enhance human cognition, to make peopel smarter in other words.

On the other hand: A Clockwork Orange and that machine in 1984 that lets Winston actually see three fingers when O'Brien is holding up four.

Big Brother is watching... himself ? ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340263#Comment_340263
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340263#Comment_340263Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:38:49 -0500oddbill
possible in humans. And I agree, simply being poor and being offered pathetic wages and being arbitrarily fired is plenty of motivation to optimize your behavior to a program dictated by someone else right now without neuromechanical intervention. It will probably never be a cost effective thing.

I guess if it works along the lines of what was tested in the experiment, you'd see people wealthy or insured enough to afford the procedure, upon being diagnosed with early stage dementia or Alzheimer's, going in for a series of "recording sessions" where their still relatively reliable daily behaviors are neuron-mapped and cataloged so that, as they lose cognitive reliability, they depend more and more on the neuroprosthetic to safely navigate their lives.

I wonder if a person relying on such a process would even realize they were doing the thing they were doing. I wonder if ultimately they would become a functional zombie. Biologically alive, but controlled largely by programs derived from their earlier life, unable to recognize themselves or actually think. I've seen Alzheimer's sufferers up close, and really think there is almost nothing of an individual left in them in the advanced stages. They are hollowed out biology, anything that formed their personhood is lost. If behavioral programs are allowing such a person to brush their teeth, go to the bathroom, eat and sleep independently, I don't think that would indicate that any more of the person was left.

It would just mean you might need less 24 hour care nurses, as sufferers could be left alone to follow reliable programmed routines.

Which I guess goes right along with your observation:

There are probably going to be a bunch of ethical arguments over applying an expensive invasive potetnially dangerous treatment to peopel who will likely only have a few more years life in any case.

Some really important stuff about what's often going wrong with our conceptions about sexuality. Like real damn important. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340397#Comment_340397
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340397#Comment_340397Mon, 17 Sep 2012 06:41:04 -0500phill_sea
#OWS is reawakening with a bang again this year #S17 on twitter.

Residents on a remote island in the Northern Territory were shocked to see what looked like a Viking ship sail past yesterday.Police say they received a report of residents seeing the unusual boat off the coast of Elcho Island in Arnhem Land.

Why did people call the police ? Did they think they were going to be raided and plundered by actual vikings ? Have they never seen a replica ship ?

"Police and local rangers patrolled the area and came across the vessel with swords drawn," Watch Commander Gary Smith said.

Swords ? Who had swords ? The police ? The "Vikings" ? I don't realy get that part. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340480#Comment_340480
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340480#Comment_340480Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:52:43 -0500Kay OrchisonAs for the the Viking invasion - I don't get it either. "Calling the police" on Elcho might involve a CB if the cop had gone fishing, but in all likelihood was just "Oi, Frank, look over there." I guess a Viking ship passing was probably just about the most interesting thing that's happened there since the Chooky Dancers' Zorba went viral, and considering that everyone was standing around staring it would just have been plain rude if someone hadn't called the police. He'd have felt snubbed, which is serious business in a small town. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340481#Comment_340481
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340481#Comment_340481Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:25:24 -0500Purple WyrmSo they weren't so much worried about vikings plundering their women and cattle as a handful of foreigners sneaking into the country and destroying our job-market/economy/culture/precious bodily fluids. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340482#Comment_340482
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340482#Comment_340482Tue, 18 Sep 2012 05:26:16 -0500Wood
Viking ship sparks suspicion on remote NT island

Ranger Damien Clayton said the initial reports suggested the boat could be carrying asylum seekers.

"We had reports a wooden boat was anchored out just offshore of the community on the western side (of Elcho Island) that looked a bit suspicious," he said.

"It slowly moved around to the eastern side then we got more reports it could possibly be asylum seekers or illegal immigrants.

A Chicago advocacy group says that the restaurant Chick-fil-A has promised to back away from funding socially conservative groups that have pressed to limit marriage to one man and one woman.

The apparent decision by the chain's WinShape Foundation would mark a retreat from the summer's culture war pitting advocates of marriage equality against conservative claims that the chain was under assault for simple free speech. The comments came, the group The Civil Rights Agenda said, in correspondence with a Chicago alderman who had opposed the chain's expansion to the city.

“The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas," the chain is said to have written in a letter to Alderman Proco Moreno. The Chicago group added in a press release: "In meetings the company executives clarified that they will no longer give to anti-gay organizations, such as Focus on the Family and the National Organization for Marriage."

Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti said he encountered the woman in the street while on his way to the mosque in the town of Shahmirzad, and asked her to cover herself up, to which she replied “you, cover your eyes,” according to Mehr. The cleric repeated his warning, which he said prompted her to insult and push him. “I fell on my back on the floor,” Beheshti said in the report. “I don’t know what happened after that, all I could feel was the kicks of this woman who was insulting me and attacking me.”

If they were adept at finding exits, he wouldn't have had to go to the hospital, after all. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340919#Comment_340919
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=340919#Comment_340919Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:19:38 -0500Foamhead
DOOMED! Series:

A new respiratory illness similar to the Sars virus that spread globally in 2002 and killed hundreds of people has been identified in a man who is being treated in Britain.The 49-year-old man, who was transferred to a London hospital by air ambulance from Qatar, is the second person confirmed with the coronavirus.The first case was a patient in Saudi Arabia who has since died.

Both from the Middle East... Fox News must be warming-up their hysterical headline generator by now.

Germany's Roman Catholics are to be denied the right to Holy Communion or religious burial if they stop paying a special church tax.All Germans who are officially registered as Catholics, Protestants or Jews pay a religious tax of 8-9% on their annual income tax bill. The levy was introduced in the 19th Century in compensation for the nationalisation of religious property.Until now, any German Catholic who stopped payment faced eventual excommunication. Although the measures laid out in the decree are similar to excommunication from the church, German observers say the word is carefully avoided in the decree.

When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem.

And nobody in Germany sees anything wrong with the concept of registering as a Jew ? I'm just asking. Not to mention the fact that there seem to be "official" and unofficial" religions. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341012#Comment_341012
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341012#Comment_341012Tue, 25 Sep 2012 05:47:50 -0500Steve Toasehttp://www.yorkcastle.com/pages/jewish_history.htmlEdited to say in contrast with the UK Germany doesn't have a state religion, though different areas are either more catholic or protestant. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341028#Comment_341028
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341028#Comment_341028Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:54:35 -0500Nygaard

Live feed of tonight's protests:http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/09/17/videos/1347870347_245504.html

...snake robots could be as minimally invasive as possible with today's technology - they would use body orifices or local incisions as points of entry, says Rob Buckingham, managing director at OC Robotics...

David Cameron may struggle at passport control when he returns home from his trip to the US and Brazil after fluffing a mock citizenship test on the Late Show with David Letterman."You have found me out. That is bad, I have ended my career on your show tonight," the prime minister said, after struggling when Letterman fired a series of questions at him.

A news agency in Iran has published a report by the satirical news website, The Onion, saying rural white Americans would rather vote for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than Barack Obama.Quoting The Onion word-for-word, Fars states that an opinion poll also found 77% would rather go to a baseball game or have a drink with Mr Ahmadinejad.

The ailment that was keeping out the MVP candidate, initially diagnosed as a sinus issue that impaired his vision, turned out to be ocular keratitis, a condition that dries the cornea and can be brought on by consuming too much caffeine.

Hamilton, a recovering drug and alcohol addict, described the lack of focus he was experiencing as being on an extreme sugar high. The problem was traced to his caffeine consumption.

"Drinking caffeine -- coffee in the morning, coffee midday, energy drink before the game, chocolate after the game -- all these things were compounding and making it worse and worse," said Hamilton, who is tied for the American League lead with 42 home runs.

Even with powerful telescopes, comet 2012 S1 (ISON) is now just a faint glow in the constellation Cancer. But the ball of ice and rocks might become visible to the naked eye for a few months in late 2013 and early 2014—perhaps outshining the moon, astronomers say.

A little after 4 a.m. on July 21, 1996, Damon Thibodeaux, a deckhand on a Mississippi River workboat, cracked at the end of a nine-hour interrogation and confessed to the brutal rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin, Crystal Champagne.

“I didn’t know that I had done it,” Thibodeaux said at one point, according to a police transcript. “But I done it.”

Before that day was over, Thibodeaux had recanted his confession, telling his court-appointed lawyer that he told police what they wanted to hear in response to threats of death by lethal injection and his grief over the death of his cousin. Nonetheless, Thibodeaux was later convicted of both crimes and sentenced to die.

Judge Patrick McCabe — who presided over the original trial in 1997 — issued a sealed order on Thursday vacating the conviction. With Thibodeaux’s release Friday, he became the 300th wrongly convicted person and 18th death-row inmate exonerated in the United States substantially on the basis of DNA evidence, according to the New York-based Innocence Project, which provides legal counsel to prisoners it believes can be exonerated through DNA testing.

Friday’s release was authorized by Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. after an extraordinary five-year joint re­investigation with defense lawyers concluded that the murder confession was clearly false. Nearly every ostensible fact in the statement didn’t match the crime scene or other evidence. The inquiry found that the sexual assault to which Thibodeaux also confessed — making him eligible under Louisiana law for the death penalty — never occurred.

Part of me thinks that would never fly in the UK, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341568#Comment_341568
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341568#Comment_341568Thu, 04 Oct 2012 02:11:08 -0500sneak046
Are you sure about that?

In a statement that accompanies the webpage, Maine Republicans said playing the game led Ms Lachowicz to live a "bizarre double life" that raised questions about her ability to represent the state.

I can see why this would wig them out. I guess Republicans are used to living their bizarre double lives in cold, hard reality rather than in cyberspace... ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341747#Comment_341747
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341747#Comment_341747Sat, 06 Oct 2012 00:30:52 -0500Wood
House Science Member Says Earth is 9,000 years old

The earth is about 9,000 years old, according to U.S. House Representative Paul Broun, who is also a physician and member of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology of the House of Representatives. “There are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young earth, ” Broun said in a videotape of the Sportsmen’s Banquet held on September 27 at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia. “I don’t believe that the earth is but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them.”

The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.

When leading neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander found himself in a 7-week coma in 2008, he experienced things he never thought possible - exclusively excerpted from his upcoming book Proof of Heaven, he shares his journey to the afterlife in this week’s Newsweek.

(While the majority of living science Nobel Laureates are based in American universities, the majority of them are immigrants.) ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341825#Comment_341825
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341825#Comment_341825Sun, 07 Oct 2012 18:19:18 -0500KeeperofManyNamesMaybe, but if you look at the long term, the people graduating and becoming administrators/deans/presidents/wealthy alumni are going to grow up in a culture where science education is being disproportionately controlled by these guys. When it comes time to start importing Nobel Laureates the next generation may decide that the prestige isn't worth the threat of eternal damnation.

I just happened on this breakdown of who all is on the Science committee and, more importantly, the subcommittee on education. Scary stuff.

The 18-year-old from Heysham in Lancashire reported feeling breathless after drinking the liquid during a night out with friends on Thursday, Lancashire police said in a brief statement.She was taken to Lancaster Royal Infirmary and diagnosed with a perforated stomach. Doctors performed emergency surgery to remove a section of her stomach, thought necessary to save her life. The teenager was in a serious but stable condition, police said.

Asked about anti-gay-marriage campaigners being described as "bigots" – on one occasion by Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister – Carey said: "Let us remember the Jews in Nazi Germany. What started against them was when they started to be called names.

"And that was the first stage towards that totalitarian state. We have to resist them. We treasure democracy. We treasure our Christian inheritance and we want to debate this in a fair way."

(My mum's a keen/obsessive gardener and was in Amsterdam last week...think I might have to go see them soon-ish.) ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341904#Comment_341904
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341904#Comment_341904Tue, 09 Oct 2012 12:53:26 -0500GreasemonkeyNEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341910#Comment_341910
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341910#Comment_341910Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:15:48 -0500FinagleNEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341912#Comment_341912
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341912#Comment_341912Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:52:28 -0500GreasemonkeyThe same thing happened to an old war vet I knew, about twenty-five years ago. I had a secret plant going in a dense part of the park, and when it disappeared I assumed it'd been stolen. Mid autumn, my war vet buddy asked me to come and check out the smelly plant in his back yard. He'd found what he'd thought was a seedling of a native hibiscus, transplanted it into his garden and fed it blood and bone, and while it wasn't as bushy as the plant in the above story, it was over eight feet high and yielded 28 ounces dry. Gotta love old people and their green thumbs. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341937#Comment_341937
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341937#Comment_341937Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:44:40 -0500nelzbubFrom the look of the leaf structure this is a sativa dominant strain and would take at least nine weeks but more likely twelve to sixteen weeks flowering.

When you consider that flowering will not trigger until the approach of the autumnal equinox-and 12 weeks from there puts you into December by which time frosts will have done their damage- it's unlikely that a mature harvest would be possible. A plant that size would have provided a couple of thousand healthy clones though, and I would have love to have seen them finished.

I do a legal grow of a few plants in my back garden every year here in Amsterdam. They rarely finish properly, but still yield something worth smoking every year or at least something to make some wicked hash with.

I know we have some Icelanders here, surely this has been brought up before? It's the first I've heard of it, and I thought I was good at paying attention. :) ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341950#Comment_341950
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341950#Comment_341950Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:20:27 -0500GreasemonkeyI loved their story about having bought the plant at a garage sale, too. Who sells cannabis seedlings that way?

PS - Ever try growing any of the autoflower strains? ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341954#Comment_341954
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341954#Comment_341954Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:05:17 -0500KosmopolitThe Icelandic banks were only allowed to operate in other countries in the EEA because the Icelandic government pretended to guarantee the accounts held in those banks.

That's why the Icelandic government was on the hook- not because they were "bailing out" rich fat cats but because they, in effect, helped those banks defraud tens of thousands of ordinary people in Britain and other European countries.

Next time you complain about the British government cutting services, remember that Iceland's "revolution" is part of the reason for that.

Oh and the reason other countries can't copy Iceland is that rather than fucking over and bankrupting the citizens of other countries by allowing banks to default, they'd be fucking over and bankrupting their own citizens. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341973#Comment_341973
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341973#Comment_341973Thu, 11 Oct 2012 03:26:35 -0500Steve Toase
http://io9.com/5950543/physicists-say-there-may-be-a-way-to-prove-that-we-live-in-a-computer-simulation ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341982#Comment_341982
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=341982#Comment_341982Thu, 11 Oct 2012 06:38:41 -0500sneak046Don't be too quick to blame Icelandic bank debt for cutting UK services: (this comes from my hometown's own council press release).

•Heritable Bank, which the council had £15.6m in, has already returned £10.294m. It is currently estimated that the final sum recovered will be around 90% of the original deposit, plus interest.

•The council now also expects to get 100% of the £11m and 98% of the £15m back from Landsbanki and Glitnir banks respectively now that it has been given priority creditor status.

Rather than trying to find signs that we are being simulated, all you need to do is demonstrate that it's possible to simulate an entire working universe inside our universe. With that proof, it's incredibly unlikely that our universe is the first one to simulate another; we are much more likely to be somewhere in a matryoshka doll of universes, each simulated by the next universe up, simulating the next universe down.

The disadvantage is that it doesn't prove anything, but the advantage is that it's independent of the nature of the simulation. ]]>
NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=342004#Comment_342004
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=342004#Comment_342004Thu, 11 Oct 2012 13:05:50 -0500celan
Ancient Plankton tied to Obama Win in Southern Counties

Those counties, as he writes here, went for Obama because trillions and trillions and trillions of teeny sun-loving creatures died there. He's talking about plankton. That's why the Republicans can't carry those counties. Blame plankton.

I must admit, when they get the thermal camera on him as he's falling and you can see he's spinning really fast I really didn't fancy his chances, but he brought it under control as soon as there was enough actual air for him to be able to control it.

ITV has admitted that This Morning was the victim of a hoax following a story about a new celebrity sperm bank.CEO Dan Richards appeared on This Morning on Tuesday to discuss FameDaddy, the "first celebrity sperm donor service".

“Our world is faced with both existential threats of unprecedented seriousness (such as the environment) and huge opportunities (such as for scientific and social progress). We believe that our ability to face the threats and opportunities of the coming century will be profoundly affected by how well, and soon, we can master the art of programming our planet’s emerging global brain.”

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is one example of a new mass space vehicle that could operate in the UK if the rules were right. Yet, absurdly, the whole of Europe is at risk of missing out because we cannot agree a regulatory framework that will allow the necessary reusable aircraft-type launchers to operate here in Britain.

Today, if a few member states obstruct a new technology, such as the hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – used for the extraction of shale gas, they can have a disproportionate effect at the EU level. Whatever the reason, economic advance is threatened.

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NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 30th September)http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=342377#Comment_342377
http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=10821&Focus=342377#Comment_342377Fri, 19 Oct 2012 10:11:29 -0500dorkmuffin
Senate candidate Joe Walsh makes a strong case for increased funding to public schools in the United States by being, if I may, an ignorantsonofabitch.

But it was his comments to reporters after the event at WTTW Channel 11 that sparked the most attention. Walsh said that medical advances had rendered it unnecessary to ever perform an abortion to save a mother’s life.

“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance,” Walsh declared.

Asked then if he was saying it was never medically necessary to perform an abortion to save the life of a mother, Walsh responded: “Absolutely, yes.”

Doctors at Zhongshan Hospital successfully removed a dildo from the intestines of a 30-year-old man, who had inserted it into his body to enhance sexual pleasure with his wife.The dildo, measuring 23 centimeters in length and 8 centimeters in diameter, somehow got stuck in his intestines, doctors at Zhongshan Hospital in Xuhui District said yesterday.The dildo was inside the man for five days before he went to the hospital last Friday, when doctors failed to remove it.